Agricultural, construction, utility-repair, military and other types of equipment are often required to travel over inclined supporting surfaces oriented at an incline. This equipment sometimes comprises a structure that preferably (or perhaps necessarily) should be compensated for the non-levelness of the supporting surface. This compensation can be accomplished by, for example, an actuator and valve that supplies control fluid to the actuator in response to the incline of the supporting surface (i.e., an incline-responsive valve).
An incline-responsive valve can comprise a valve body, a spool assembly, and a pendulum assembly. The valve body is fixed to a mounting surface having an orientation corresponding to the incline of the supporting surface and the spool assembly includes a spool pivotally mounted within the valve body. A pendulum assembly pivots the spool in gravitational response to the orientation of the valve body to thereby situate the spool relative to the valve body among an IO (intended optimum) position, sequential LIO (less than intended optimum) positions that define enlarging LIO flowpaths, and sequential GIO (greater than intended optimum) positions that define enlarging GIO flowpaths.